'The Last Confession': High drama in the Vatican

June 13, 2014

Updated 11:28 a.m.

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David Suchet, kneeling, plays a Vatican power broker who suspects Pope John Paul I, who died 33 days into his papacy in 1978, was murdered. “The Last Confession” also features, from left, George Spartels, Nigel Bennett, Bernard Lloyd, Roy Lewis and Peter Harding.<252><252><137>David Suchet, center; and L to R: George Spartels, Nigel Bennett, Bernard Lloyd, David Suchet, Roy Lewis, Peter Harding in “The Last Confession.” <252><137> CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN

David Suchet, kneeling, plays a Vatican power broker who suspects Pope John Paul I, who died 33 days into his papacy in 1978, was murdered. “The Last Confession” also features, from left, George Spartels, Nigel Bennett, Bernard Lloyd, Roy Lewis and Peter Harding.<252><252><137>David Suchet, center; and L to R: George Spartels, Nigel Bennett, Bernard Lloyd, David Suchet, Roy Lewis, Peter Harding in “The Last Confession.” <252><137> CYLLA VON TIEDEMANN

A conspiracy thriller at the highest levels of the Catholic Church, Roger Crane’s “The Last Confession” takes place alternately during and before the year of the three popes, 1978, but centers largely on Pope John Paul I (Richard O’Callaghan), who reigned as the supreme pontiff for a mere 33 days. Cardinal Giovanni Benelli (David Suchet), who pulled strings for the previously little-known and unassuming Cardinal Albino Luciani (who became John Paul), is dying as the play opens. The rapid-fire story is told from Benelli’s viewpoint in flashbacks and flashforwards to an enigmatic confessor (Philip Craig).

Although intelligent, refined and highly literate, a play about Vatican intrigue is a far cry from, let’s say, the biblical entertainment of “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.” “The Last Confession” boasts 20 actors, mostly older men – Sheila Ferris as Sister Vincenza excepted – who hail from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States, and – this is telling – the majority of them have played Shakespearean roles.

So you’ll have to sit tight through the first act, which is not only talky but moves at a brisk pace, as if the actors know their clever lines a little too well and aren’t waiting around for the rest of us to digest what they’ve just said. An exception here is Donald Douglas as the ailing Pope Paul VI, who’ll be dead in a few minutes, but pay attention to him, anyway. He speaks softer, slower, even gently, but with gravitas.

Essentially, the question is, does the Church desire a conservative pontiff who adheres to tradition or one who recognizes that even a religious institution can’t fall out of step with the times, that is, with the real needs and concerns of its people? These may be distinguished men onstage, but they squabble just like the rest of us: Does the Church become involved in politics? Does it refuse to budge on the issue of limited birth control?

Crane’s play may at first seem dry and the viewer will not keep all of the names straight. You’ll get the gist of it, however, that Bishop Paul Marcinkus (Stuart Milligan), who handles the Vatican finances, is a shady character, along with his cronies the Cardinals Villot, Felici and Baggio (Nigel Bennett, John O’May and Kevin Colson), and that Luciani, our unassuming Luciani, is thrust into the papal chair as a compromise solution.

Benelli says of him that he’s “a holy man, a good pastor, a man of hope,” but Luciani doesn’t really want the job and never aspired to it.

And so it’s assumed that, as John Paul I, Luciani will be more puppet than pontiff. Well, no, he may be humble and self-effacing, but there emerges an inner resolve no one anticipated. He eschews pomp and circumstance. Somewhat reminiscent of St. Francis, a man of the people rather than a man of the church, he ruffles cardinal feathers and prepares to clean house. However, we know what happens when the lamb is thrown to the wolves.

Luciani dies, under suspicious circumstances, and suddenly we have a murder mystery with shades of a courtroom drama. This is where Crane, a lawyer, pushes on the gas: Imagine the jurors in “12 Angry Men” all in long red robes. Holy cow! Now we’re riveted to our seats.

O’Callaghan does a fine job, and there are scenes, with Sister Vincenza, or chatting with a gardener named Thomas (Marvin Ishmael), that underscore the foundations of his character. Many of the cardinals are praiseworthy, as well, and one could linger over Suchet’s Benelli for a long time. Suchet is often abrupt, even faintly aggressive in his portrayal, but he’s also a man who, falling just five votes shy of becoming pope himself, merely brushes the hand of God (his words) – and so there are the moments, the nuances of the role, when we catch glimpses of both his secret ambitions and his sacrifices. He struggles with hope and disappointment, and with faith. He is, after all, a human being.

Graced with levity, some of which might have impressed Oscar Wilde, “The Last Confession” is a speculative inquiry into what happened during that three-pope year. The subdued lighting and the movable sets suggest labyrinthine mysteries, and the score by Dominic Muldowney is often as resoundingly sonorous as would befit Captain Nemo in his Nautilus. Jonathan Church directs. It’s a demanding production, mentally challenging even, but if you can hang on, then it’s also an exhilarating ride.

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